


between two lungs (it was released)

by Hueyhuey



Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Awesome Karen Page, Bad Coffee, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Constipation, Fluff and Angst, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Frank Castle is a Father, Hurt Matt Murdock, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Season/Series 03, Team Bonding, Team Red, Wade Tries to Be a Good Dad, bowls!, mugs!, pottery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2020-12-24 15:08:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21101492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hueyhuey/pseuds/Hueyhuey
Summary: Frank himself was relatively at ease. His thundering heart marched on with all the bravado of a soldier: assured in his actions and emboldened by righteousness. His adrenaline was low; he was as at peace as he could be. In his element. Guard half down because of the tentative trust he and Matt had been painstakingly working their way towards.What the hell was off?(In which Matt learns of the significance of retaining memories in made objects. Or maybe he just likes the hypocrisy of creating rather than destroying. Either way, he finds pottery.)





	1. the breath that passed from you to me

**Author's Note:**

> Work and chapter titles from "Between Two Lungs" by Florence And The Machine purely because it was playing when I went to title this dumpster fire. 
> 
> This was definitely born of my angst about the anniversary of the release of Daredevil season 3. Also, it's barely edited so I'll be sure to note if I do revise it. Frank is a tough one to characterize from Matt's perspective. I'm not sure I'm quite happy with how I went about it.

Something was wrong with Castle.

They had just started this job, had met up on the top floor of an abandoned apartment complex to stake out the surrounding area. Frank had left his major firepower behind for Matt’s peace of mind; it was Matt who had requested Frank’s help on this and therefore Frank was playing by Matt’s rules. Matt hadn’t even done anything remotely dangerous in the past 24 hours. 

So what was making his hair stand on end?

Matt twitched his head toward Castle as he sipped his coffee and shifted into a more comfortable sitting position. He narrowed his scope of focus down to the room that they were sitting in, allowing himself to block out all other stimuli as he opened the floodgates on Castle-related sensory input.

Frank’s coffee was fine. It smelled like all that was wrong with the world, but nothing was in that disgusting concoction that shouldn’t have been.

Frank’s armor was fine. It tasted like blood and it smelled like death and it weighed on Matt like the souls of all the victims who had lost their lives to the tune of that vest; it was perfectly functioning. Matt could tell that Frank had washed it in the past couple of days. He’d used fabric softener. As if the damned thing wasn’t made of kevlar.

Frank himself was relatively at ease. His thundering heart marched on with all the bravado of a soldier: assured in his actions and emboldened by righteousness. His adrenaline was low; he was as at peace as he could be. In his element. Guard half down because of the tentative trust he and Matt had been painstakingly working their way towards.

What the hell was off?

Matt let his paranoia simmer in amongst the rest of his concerns. He turned away from Castle, leaning out the open window to catch a whiff of the air from below them. He could feel Castle’s sneer as he processed the information, could hear the muttered, “fuckin’ bloodhound.” It hung in the space around Frank’s head and lit up his scarred scalp, drew Matt’s attention back to his disgusting coffee.

“How do you drink that shit?”

Frank twisted around to address him, annoyance evident in the set of his shoulders. He extended his arm and sloshed the coffee down the sides of its container. It splattered onto the ground and contributed to Matt’s oncoming headache. “Same way I did when it was the only shit available in the middle of a goddamn warzone, Red. What, my brew offending your nose’s delicate sensibilities?”

Matt felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards despite himself. He’d missed getting to fuck with Castle. The guy had been a pain in his ass--and vice versa--for so long that it was kind of a novelty to be able to push his buttons without being threatened at gunpoint. After everything that had happened with Midland Circle and Poindexter, after so much guilt and being unable to atone for all the pain he had caused, it was, for lack of a better feeling, nice to sit with Castle and do recon for a job. It was nice to go back to his gritty roots: back to scraping the scum off the ground of Hell’s Kitchen, back to tying knots in organized crime only to slice them to shreds, back to helping the people in his city who needed it, both in and out of the suit. 

Castle noticed his smirk and rolled his eyes before turning back to his vantage point by the window. Matt felt that prickling sensation of wrongness trail behind Frank’s movements. It was all-consuming, made it impossible for Matt to focus on anything else. His teeth were searing because of how hard he was gritting them. 

He grunted and went to stretch, if only to shake the feeling. The smell hit him as soon as he moved back. It was initially that of exposed bone and molding drywall, but underneath lay an earthen, sulfuric note which caused the entire scent to come across as overall not entirely unpleasant. It tasted of powdered glass and grubby fingers and overwhelmingly of the coffee permeating Matt’s sinuses. It sounded like the tapping of Frank’s fingers and his thumb rubbing against an indentation right near the handle.

Frank had a mug.

Frank never had mugs. Just his old, beat all to hell thermos that accompanied him on all his excursions. This mug felt different. It carried a weight that Matt could only identify as sentiment.

Matt couldn’t breathe; the scent of the mug combined with its contents was cloying and it stifled everything in its vicinity. He lashed out and snatched Frank’s mug out of his hands, chucking the coffee dregs out of the window. It was larger than a typical coffee mug, irregular in shape and texture. It was a kid’s art project, sculpted by inexperienced, hesitant hands. 

Frank stood up abruptly, rage igniting his form as he stalked over to Matt and attempted to grab the mug back. Matt jerked it out of his reach, feeling for all the world like a bully taunting his victim. Fury tempered Frank’s voice as he demanded, “The fuck you do that for? Gimme my damn mug, Red.”

“What happened to your thermos, Frank?”

“None a your damn business what happened to my fuckin’ thermos. Give me my mug.”

“Calm down, I just wanna see it.” Matt felt along the surface of the mug, sensing Frank’s form looming over him. His eyes bored holes into Matt’s fingers as they memorized the fine details. There were mountain ranges and river valleys littering the mug, punctuated by tiny fingerprints. It told stories in the crests and troughs of its waves. The whole thing was muffled by an uneven coating of some sort of glaze, which Matt identified as the source of the scent of crushed bone and organic material. The handle was better attached on the bottom than on the top, and it was big enough that Frank could fit four of his large fingers into the space with ease. There was an intentional fingerprint above the handle, where a thumb might go. On the bottom of the mug, painstakingly inscribed by shaking fingers and a toothpick, were the words ‘For daddy, from Lisa’. 

Matt returned the mug to its owner as soon as he read those words. He felt sheepish for having prodded at such a sensitive object. He tried to meet Frank’s eyes through the mask as they both settled back into their perches. “I’m sorry, Frank. It wasn’t my place to do that.”

Frank snorted, irritation palpable and hostility rolling off of him in waves. He spoke after nearly a minute’s silence: “I don’t got much of ‘em left. My little girl made this for me while I was deployed. Don’t usually bring it out on jobs ‘cause it’s so fragile, but my thermos is cracked. You’re goddamn lucky you didn’t break it. I woulda thrown you off this high rise without a second thought.”

Matt considered the anecdote for the olive branch that it was. He decided to extend one of his own. “I remember my old man used to have this mug I made him. It was a piece of crap, but I poured my heart out making it for ‘im. I forgot to patch a hole in the top half, so if he ever filled it all the way up it would spill all over the ground. He loved that thing. I never did find out what happened to it.”

Frank set the piece of pottery down on the floor and crossed his arms. He stared out the window and leaned into the column he was resting against. “You hear anything down there?”

Matt recognized the tone shift. The moment was over. Frank had forgiven him. In true Castle fashion, he had decided that it was time to move onto more important things. Matt sighed, sitting down on the window ledge, and kicked his feet into the cold updraft. He responded, “Nothing. It’s quiet for a whole block.”

“Well damn, that’s fucking weird. We’re in the middle of the city.”

“Yeah. There isn’t one junkie squatting in this entire complex. Completely silent.”

Frank sat up, gathering up his mug and wrapping it up in his coat. He placed it carefully into his pack and stood up, stretching. Matt grimaced at the pull of stitches in his leg and the pop of his bruised shoulders. Frank offered a hand in Matt’s direction and said, “What do you say we make some noise?”


	2. the air has filled me head to toe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt’s feelings regarding Danny’s powers were exacerbated tenfold when said powers manifested inconsistently.
> 
> The last straw came in the form of a grenade hucked over the closest shipping container.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look at that I'm alive also I apparently can't proofread anything? Or edit it? I'm very sorry about that. Free time is impossible to find, I do not know how anyone gets anything done in this world. Here's this, it is a thing that exists now, that is all. 
> 
> Oh, there is some violence and a bit of gore, as well as discussion of existential topics. Please do what you need to stay safe.

Rand was being even more infuriating than usual. 

His chi had been acting up since the start of the evening. Matt wasn’t huge on whatever Danny believed made his fist exude so much energy, but he was usually able to swallow his snarky comments when they were on important jobs. Tonight, unfortunately, the Iron Fist seemed incapable of completing the most menial of tasks. Something was making his heart race out of sync with his breathing, and he kept losing control over his abilities. Matt’s feelings regarding Danny’s powers were exacerbated tenfold when said powers manifested inconsistently.

The last straw came in the form of a grenade hucked over the closest shipping container. Matt heard the perpetrator pulling the pin, but was unable to connect the noise to the imminent danger until he felt the shell hit the ground.

He didn’t think. His people were all within range of the blast. His team was going to die. Luke and Jessica and Danny were going to be taken from him, and he had only just gotten them all back.

He yelled, “Bomb!” and sprinted straight towards the explosive.

It went off before he could get there. 

But not before Luke could. Matt heard Luke’s body hit the space on top of the grenade a second before it exploded underneath him. The shock flung Luke into the air. Matt was thrown back into a freight box and knocked unconscious. 

He came to when the sensation of being dunked into freezing water overwhelmed his senses. Everything stopped functioning. He couldn’t hear. Couldn’t smell or taste or feel or see at all. He was a disembodied conscience floating through the ether of ice. He could do nothing. 

He told his nonexistent limbs to move and nothing happened. He told his heart to beat and it stayed irrefutably distant. He told his mouth to open, his vocal chords to contract, to push the vacuum out of his lungs, and by the grace of God they obeyed. He released an enormous scream into the void and it all came rushing back.

The first stimulus to break through the dam was the feel of Jessica’s leather jacket under his knees and around his shoulders. Then came the smell of her liquor-tainted breath and the taste of her deodorant and the sound of burning. The pressure of water all around them.

Jessica dropped him after he screamed, and the shock of the cold water enveloping him again ensured that he was fully conscious. He scrambled to find his bearings only to realize that the water was hip deep. Jessica spoke after he stopped panicking: “Christ, Murdock! What the hell was that?”

Matt tried to piece together what had happened. Why was he in the river? Where were Danny and Luke? How had--

“Luke. Where’s Luke?”

Jessica’s heart jumped into high gear. “He’s on the way to Sinai West. Danny went with him, finally got the goddamn fist going after some dumbass opened a box of fucking grenades.”

Matt furrowed his brow, trying to remember through the haze clouding his thoughts. “I heard him pull the pin. Tried to cover it. Must not have gotten there in time.”

Aggravation radiated off of Jessica, buffeted against Matt’s frozen, aching body and made fractures run through all the places where it hurt. She snarked, “What a great idea! Run towards the fucking grenade! Guess who isn’t bulletproof, idiot! If anyone should’ve taken a grenade to the ribs, of course it would have been Luke. He’s scrambled all to hell inside, but at least he’s still alive.”

Matt shivered into the pointed end of Jessica’s comment. He tried to stand up to get away from the freezing water. His head awoke anew to protest the movement, and his shoulder shrieked in agony. He doubled over as best he could and cried out.

Jessica huffed out a breath of air and said, “I tried to get you conscious, but nothing was working. Ended up dumping you into the river and having to follow you in after you freaked and blacked out again. Bet you’ve got a concussion at least. Your right arm’s fucked up too.”

Matt focused on the pain, using it as a point of center as he took deep breaths to calm his heart. He tried to feel what the cause of the pain was, but it was too his senses were still too scrambled to discern the exact location. It felt like a break if he was feeling lucky, maybe some splintered bone if he wasn’t. 

The way his evening was going, he was going to have to say he wasn’t feeling all that lucky.

“We’ve gotta go, gotta find Luke. Why hospital? What exactly happened?”

Jessica moved to support his weight on his good side, and he suppressed a grunt as the dizziness approached unprecedented levels. As they made their way to the ramp on the pier, she spoke: “Luke got there before you could kill yourself. Again. He got thrown damn high and he landed in some crates that’d caught fire and he’d be dead about five times over if it wasn’t for his skin. Had major swelling in the abdomen and EMTs said a punctured lung, which means broken ribs. By the time I woke up Rand was working his fist voodoo on him. Think he was conscious by the time they left.”

Matt felt some of the tension in his chest release at the last admission. Luke was awake. Luke was not in shock. Danny had been able to get to him in time. He let his head drop once they reached land, which only served to increase his vertigo. He pressed into his bad arm to use the pain as an anchor. Jessica let him catch his breath against a shipping container. He waited a moment before he asked a question itching at the back of his mind.

“What the hell was up with Rand tonight? Pretty sure the guy that threw the grenade was one of his marks.”

Jessica scuffed the ground, kicking aside some smoldering debris. She seemed lost in thought, and Matt was about ready to push off of the metal wall by the time she responded, “said he lost something important to him when I met up with him earlier today. I pushed it, but he wasn’t exactly in a talkative mood.”

“That’s fucking insane. Can’t even remember the last time he didn’t feel like talking.”

Jessica huffed. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. It’s gotta be something from his thing with the Meachums.”

Matt blanked at the name. He tried to focus, to call up a memory of the mention of any Meachums, but the persistent stabbing pain in his right shoulder was making it hard to focus. “I got nothin’ on that. Where’re we going?”

Jessica didn’t provide an answer. They’d been limping along various darkly lit alleys and backroads in the opposite direction of Sinai West. Matt became intrinsically aware of how close they were to his apartment. He stopped walking. “No. We’ve gotta go to Luke. To the hospital.”

Jessica’s glare burned him. She seethed and ground her teeth as she worked out an answer. 

“You know secret identities? And how you’re the only one on our team who has one? And also, by the way, how you hate hospitals? Yeah, uh huh, keep nodding your head. Maybe it’ll knock you out. We’re going to your apartment--”

“No, Luke. Fucking hospit--”

“--and we’re going to make sure you don’t die, and we’re going to preserve your dignity and your identity. And I’m going to drink so much of your alcohol. And then when we’re done with all that shit, we’ll call Danny. Or hell, Claire’s probably there by now.”

Matt conceded, but only because he knew he was only a few minutes away from passing out. He allowed Jessica to take more and more of his weight as they reached the apartment. 

By the time Matt’s arm had been suitably immobilized and his head had stopped spinning, Jessica was nearly two bottles into his bottom shelf liquor and sprawled all over his damn couch dead asleep. Matt had refused to drink anything despite the pain; one of them needed to be lucid in case Rand or someone else called.

He listened to the bustle of the city below to pass the time. The sun had risen over the course of the last hour, and Matt was taking a moment to appreciate the warmth of the rays filtering in through his bedroom windows as his shoulder throbbed at a discordant frequency with his head. 

He heard Jessica startle herself awake in the other room and decided that he’d had enough waiting. He tried to push himself into a sitting position and the resulting groan drew Jessica’s attention. 

“Stay still, asshole!” she called from somewhere in Matt’s kitchen. “I’m making you some damn coffee.” Then, under her breath, “If you won’t take any fucking depressants maybe a stimulant’ll shock your system enough to knock you out so I don’t have to hear your loud ass complaining.”

Matt ignored Jessica’s griping, choosing instead to center his breathing and steady his heart rate as he attempted to sit up again. He managed to get both legs over the edge of his bed before the vertigo found him. He wrenched his shoulder in his struggle not to dry heave and ended up folded over himself, head between his knees and arm crushed up against his chest.

Jessica’s thudding footfalls stopped in the threshold of his sliding door. She drawled, “That’s actually hilarious, don’t move, I’m taking about twenty pictures of this moment in my head right now. Why the hell can you not listen to anything I tell you to do?”

Matt grimaced and forced himself to unfold, purposefully aiming his gaze downward so Jessica wouldn’t have the gratification of seeing his embarrassment. He was never usually so affected by something as minor as a broken collarbone or a concussion. 

But fuck, it hurt.

Jessica snorted at the look on his face anyway and strode away, surprisingly stable considering the contents of her stomach. Matt took a deep inhale and was rewarded when his head didn’t spin out of control. He smelled the coffee starting and the screaming agony dulled to a sharp pain. 

He was about to ask if Jessica had heard anything from Rand when his burner went off right next to him. Careful not to move his bad arm, Matt reached out and drew the ringing cell to his ear. “Hello.”

It was Rand. “Double D! You’re alive, that’s good to hear. I got news on Luke.”

Matt held the receiver away from his ear because Rand was practically shouting into the other side. He waited a beat for Rand to elaborate. When it became clear that no such thing was going to happen, Matt asked, “What’s the news?”

Rand must have been sleep deprived, because it took him a moment to register the question. “Hm? Oh, he’s gonna live. Out of ICU and condition’s being managed. Claire’s here and Detective Knight dropped by for a little...” Rand trailed off in the middle of his thought. He continued, “I can’t help but feel like this is my fault.”

Matt bit his lip. Jessica had appeared in the doorway. He had to dance around this line of thinking delicately, lest Rand begin building up a guilt complex to rival Matt’s own. He put on his lawyer voice. “I don’t think you can place the entirety of the blame on any one factor, Danny. You were off your game tonight. It happens to everyone. I’ve got too many scars to count to back that up. Luke knew what he was doing when he took that blast. He won’t blame you.”

Matt listened to Rand’s too fast breathing as he processed that and wished that he could hear his heartbeat through the tinny line. 

Jessica moved further into the room and gestured for the phone. Matt handed it over and started working on standing up while she talked to Rand. She told him that they’d head to the hospital soon and hung up. 

Matt could feel Jessica’s gaze on his battered form. He turned towards the bathroom and made several hesitant steps in that direction. She hummed, satisfied, and left the room.

Once Matt was full of coffee and a couple of Aleve that Jessica had coerced him into taking, he was feeling semi-presentable. His head had cleared with the introduction of caffeine and his shoulder was stoically being ignored until a more convenient time.

He and Jessica walked arm in arm through the entrance to the hospital. They were directed to a shared room. Luke was the occupant nearest the window. Apparently Rand had paid the hospital a generous donation to keep quiet about the recuperating vigilante in their care.

Luke was asleep, floating in a sedative-facilitated dreamscape. He was burning up. The heat rolled off of him in waves and assaulted Matt’s senses. It seemed that he was composed entirely of swelling and inflammation. Matt did a sweep of his body and paused at his chest, aghast to hear how thready Luke’s usually thundering heartbeat had become. His body was fighting itself.

As Jessica settled into a chair next to Luke’s bedside and took his hand, Matt scanned the hospital in pursuit of Danny’s whereabouts. He found him in the corner of the cafeteria, nursing a cup of coffee and smelling like he needed about a full day’s worth of sleep. He indicated to Jessica that he was leaving and limped out of the room, cane tapping before him.

Rand smelled even worse up close. The wrinkles in his clothes tasted like ash and sorrow permeated the bags under his eyes. Matt found the chair across from him and sat, folding up his cane and tucking it away. Danny watched this with desolation.

“It’s not your fault.”

Danny physically flinched back at the remark, tucking deeper into himself. When he spoke, it was deliberate and slow. “It was. I was the one distracted and I was the reason that guy had a chance to get to the grenade. I have no one but myself to blame.” 

Matt sat back, good arm slung over the back of the chair. “Fine. Say it’s entirely your fault. Say you could have prevented what happened. Say none of the blame falls on anyone else Find the root of the problem and fix it.”

Danny stared at him in silence for nearly a full minute. He shifted, and his heartbeat returned to its usual confident rhythm. He said, “I lost something last night. I don’t usually attach a lot of sentimental value to material things. It’s stupid that I’m so worried about it, it’s just a bowl. I just--I don’t know. It reminds me of someone I thought was a friend who ended up betraying me.”

“Why did you let it shake you up so much?”

Rand placed his clasped hands on the table and wrung his fingers. Matt could hear the creaking of a torn ligament harmonizing with the iron taste of bruised knuckles. He reached across the table and took one of Danny’s hands in his own. Danny drew in a shaky breath. voice hoarse with emotion as he replied, “I can’t really describe it. It was just a bowl I made for someone as a child. Had one of my fingerprints on it; that was the only thing left of my identity when I returned from K’un-Lun. I guess losing it felt like losing my connection with this place.” 

Danny seemed to realize that he’d overshared. He stood up, knocking the cheap metal chair into the nearest table and causing it to clatter. He said, “I’m going to go check on Luke,” and rushed out of the room. Matt was left alone with a cooling cup of hospital coffee and the overpowering weight of inadequacy trailing behind Rand’s swift exit. 

He pushed his own chair back and stood up, ginger in his movements. He unfolded his cane and headed in the direction of the hospital chapel in search of clarity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this mess which exists solely as an excuse for me to preach about how much I like Florence + The Machine. Updates will happen at some point probably.
> 
> I live off of criticism and comments! I love you for reading! Thank you!


	3. I have this breath and I hold it tight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tonight, Matt was meeting up with the kid and Deadpool to help them out on a job. He had specifically requested no explosives, but Peter had been rather distracted by a dog at a cafe across the street when he’d said that. If he ended up exploded by another damn grenade he was going to threaten to take the kid’s ass to court.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruh this thing is a lot longer than I thought it would be but story of my life I guess. Happy Thanksgiving, and remember that you owe no one any measure of gratitude, and also please do what you must to be safe, and here is this thing that is an on fire garbage can.

Matt felt the protest of his freshly healed collarbone reverberate through his skeleton as he swung up onto a fire escape.

Foggy had just about thrown him out of a window when he’d shown up to the office sans sling, using some monstrosity composed of cling wrap and gauze under his suit in a useless attempt to prevent the bone fragments from grinding together and distracting him. He’d allowed Fog to take him to a clinic under the guise that someone had run into him with their bike. They were nice enough not to ask about the scars and they even let him leave without pestering him about pain meds.

That clinic was now his primary care center. Well, besides Claire. 

He’d had to lay low for a while, let his body knit itself back into something resembling working order. He hadn’t been out in the suit in weeks. Despite the self-imposed physical therapy at Fogwell’s, he could feel the places where his muscles had atrophied. 

His thoughts turned to Luke as he reached one of his usual perches for a break. The big guy had spent over a week at Sinai, fighting inflammation and a steady fever. He’d been awake every time Matt had visited, but he was so hot and doped up on meds that it was difficult to be in the same room with him. His doctors maintained that he would make a full recovery, and Luke was nothing if not resilient. Matt hoped that being blown up by a grenade wasn’t the guy’s threshold.

Tonight, Matt was meeting up with the kid and Deadpool to help them out on a job. He had specifically requested no explosives, but Peter had been rather distracted by a dog at a cafe across the street when he’d said that. If he ended up exploded by another damn grenade he was going to threaten to take the kid’s ass to court. 

Peter had been reluctant to mention that Deadpool would be joining them. His reluctance was well placed, because Matt had wanted to fuck off as soon as that name had left his mouth. 

He’d worked with Wade a number of times in the past. He fucking hated doing it, because it sent his moral compass into a tailspin. When Wade showed up to a job, it meant maiming and/or murder was absolutely going to occur. 

He’d had to deal with Wade’s bullshit more times than he liked to admit in the past couple of months. The guy seemed to cling to Peter like a giant, malformed shadow. The two were nearly inseparable. Matt should have expected that Deadpool would be accompanying them on this latest mission; the three of them had been working together on the same jobs for a while.

Peter had told him to rendezvous at one of their designated meeting roofs in Brooklyn. It was way outside Matt’s usual area of jurisdiction, but he was making an exception, both for Peter’s benefit and because the guy they were tracking had connections to a trafficking ring that had been giving him trouble at the docks. 

Matt scaled the fire escape of the meeting roof and landed lightly on the lip of the building. Spider-Man came within his earshot not ten seconds later, and he settled onto the ledge to stretch out his sore muscles while he waited for Peter to arrive. 

Peter landed on the other side of the roof with a crunch and scanned his surroundings. His gaze passed right over Matt, and he seemed to decide that he was alone because his posture lost its edge. He plonked himself down and pulled his phone out. The tinny sounds of Candy Crush reached Matt’s ears. 

“You need glasses, kid,” he said. Peter jumped about three feet in the air. He threw a web in the direction of Matt’s voice but missed. “I wasn’t even trying to be inconspicuous.”

Peter spotted him and his guard immediately relaxed. He took in a deep breath. Matt heard the protest of his bruised ribs as he exhaled. He walked over as he replied, “Dude, you gave me a heart attack! What the hell!”

Matt wasn’t in the mood to be forgiving. He was mapping the trail of pulsing injuries clustered along Peter’s right side. The kid’s defense still needed some work. Matt would have to take a day off patrol to rectify that. He felt Stick prodding from his subconscious as he retaliated, “Is your vision screwed up, are you just that bad at keeping your guard up? Come on kid, I thought I’d been teaching you better than that.”

Peter approached Matt’s ledge and perched beside him, folding his gangly legs one over another. He slumped into the curve of his bruising and pulled his mask up for some fresh air. Matt took this as a cue to remove his own. The cool night air wound its way into his suit and soothed his aching shoulder. He tuned into Peter, allowing himself to get swept up in the sensory input the kid was giving off. He waited.

And waited.

And Peter only slouched further down. He wouldn’t look at Matt. 

Two could play at that game, bucko. Matt angled his face up and away from his mentee. He began to slip into a state of meditation. In the back of his mind, he wondered where Wade was.

Peter allowed the silence between them to grow for another couple of minutes before he broke it. He said, “I’m having a hard time managing the boundary between vigilantism and heroism. I got into a… fight with Mr. Stark about it--,” he drew in a shaky breath, “--and ended up getting involved in something above my paygrade. I should have called him, he would’ve helped, but I wanted to prove my point, I guess. Ended up half-dead on my couch for a week and now Mr. Barnes and my aunt are blaming Mr. Stark. They won’t listen to me when I tell them it’s not his fault.”

“S’a fucking rock and a hard place you’re stuck between, kid. The morality of vigilantism is the hardest part of the job. I can’t give you a concrete answer. Neither can Stark. You’ve gotta build one up for yourself, set your boundaries and dig your feet in. The same goes for whatever consequences arise as a result. It’s hard to take responsibility for something so ambiguous, but they’ll understand. You have to figure it out first, though.”

Peter looked up at Matt. He could feel those eyes on his own. They were full of so many kinds of sadness. He whispered, “Figure what out?”

Oh, kid. If only Matt knew. “All of it. None of it. Whatever you need to keep your people.”

Peter seemed satisfied with that answer. He leaned against Matt’s still form for balance and stuck to the wall behind them. His breathing settled as he allowed himself to stand horizontally above the alley below. He started walking downward. Matt let him go; he’d be back.

Deadpool smelled like fresh blood and ammo and new deodorant. He crashed into Matt’s relative peace five minutes after Peter started his walk. Matt still had his mask off when Wade dumped his ammo bag onto the roof with a clatter. He hauled himself over the edge of the fire escape only to trip over the bag and send its contents scattering across the rooftop.

Matt hadn’t seen someone roll their eyes in over a decade, but he did his damnedest impression of one in the direction of Wade’s tangle of limbs.

Wade extracted himself from the pile of weapons and shook himself out. He looked at Matt and then out across the roof. The gears in his head audibly turned. He looked back at Matt, and then again in the opposite direction. “Where’s Spidey?” was what he settled on.

“Back in a minute. Took a walk to blow off some steam,” Matt replied evenly.

Wade scoffed. He bent down to pick up the contents of his bag. “He can blow off his steam when we finish this. Mama’s on a tight schedule.”

Matt stood, ignoring the protest of his joints and replacing his mask. He knelt to help Wade. “Double book yourself again?”

“Something like that.”

Matt didn’t push it. If Wade was unforthcoming with details, he probably didn’t want to know anyway. He felt his way through the various guns, checking safeties and picking up rubber bullets from crevices in the roof where they had come to rest. 

Wade picked up something small and carefully placed it into a discreet pocket along the outside of the bag. It made a soft noise when it connected with the fabric, like it was clinging to the fibers. Matt cocked his head. 

“What was that?”

Wade slowed his movements, but his heart rate betrayed that he hadn’t intended to bring the object to Matt’s attention. He intoned, “Just a token of luck. From someone important.”

That sounded exploitable. “Why does an unkillable merc need a token of luck?”

“Don’t bullshit me with your lawyer crap. Why’s a mortal blind vigilante go out without one? Fuck off.”

Wow, okay. Calm down, Mr. I Hold No Attachment To Anything On This Mortal Plain Because It’ll Only Bring Me Pain. No harm meant.

Matt was so focused on Wade’s outburst that he didn’t notice Peter returning from his walk. When the kid said, “What’s got your fetish gear in a twist, DP?” not three yards behind them, Matt jerked so hard that he sent a scope flying out of his hands. 

Wade stood and enclosed Peter in a bone-crushing hug, lifting him off of his feet. He replied, “Spidey! Precious, sweet, perfect angel. I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“We worked together last night, Wade. Put me down.”

Wade dropped Peter unceremoniously and returned to picking up his strewn guns. Peter brushed himself off and turned to Matt. “What were you all talking about?”

“Did you know that Wade carries a ‘token of luck’ around with him on jobs? Is that not the most conceited thing you’ve ever heard?”

“I dunno man, I’ve seen you in court before. Not much can hold up to that.”

Oh. Matt saw how this was going to be. He raised his voice so that Wade would be certain to pay attention. “I just think it’s gotta be someone real important for Deadpool to go around carrying a reminder of them.”

Peter caught on fast. The kid was a quick learner. He inched toward Wade and the ammo bag as he responded, “Oh, yeah. Not a lot of room for sentiment when you’re on the job, is there, Wade? Who’s occupying that space right now?”

Wade was seething. Absolutely fuming. He snapped, “Fine, you fuckers want to know so bad? Have a peek. Jesus Christ. Can’t have any fucking privacy anymore.”

Matt barely sensed the small object flying at his face in time to catch it. It landed soft and heavy in his palm. He tore off his glove to get a better feel of it. 

The token was actually a little clay figurine. Peter leaned over his shoulder to get a look. Wade leaned away from them and glared daggers at the ground. Matt felt along its surface, tracing a painstakingly carved face, whiskers, pointed ears.

A bow.

“It’s a Hello Kitty!” Peter shouted into his ear.

Yikes, kid. Take the volume down about twenty notches. Matt felt the bow again, down the face, to the little carved dress. He held it out towards Wade.

Wade pushed off of where he was leaning, took the figure and returned it to its pocket where it swiftly lost its heat from having been touched. It sat sadly next to the guns and knives and bullets. 

Peter looked down at the bag and asked, “So who’s that from?”

Wade glanced at his watch, then replied, “You remember meeting Ellie a couple months back, bud?”

Peter nodded.

Matt wracked his brain for anyone associated with Deadpool named Ellie. Nothing came to mind, and then all he could think of was Elektra. Stick’s fucking pet name for her. Her bleeding out through his fingers on a rooftop. Her hitching breaths as Midland Circle came crashing down on top of them.

This was a different Ellie. Wade explained that this Ellie, who was apparently his daughter, had bought him the Hello Kitty figurine on a trip to Japan with her current family.

After Wade finished his explanation, Peter began pestering him with questions. Matt turned away from their exchange, trying to shake the ghost of Elektra’s voice from his ears and the curve of the Hello Kitty bow from the tips of his fingers. It wouldn’t do to dwell on the past tonight. The three of them had shit to get done.

Speaking of, a town-car with their names on it had just pulled into a parking garage across the street. “I hate to interrupt this team bonding experience, but our mark’s on the move.”  
“We a team now, Red?” Wade asked as he zipped up his ammo bag, slung it across his shoulder, and cocked the gun in his hands. 

Peter beat Matt to the punch and snatched it out of his arms, ejecting the magazine and webbing up the barrel. “No killing,” he chastised.

Maybe the kid was farther along than Matt had thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :) I'm tired :)


	4. I pray to God this breath will last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second to last installment. Was lots of fun to write something a little more lighthearted. It's short and unedited.
> 
> Nothing particularly bad in this chapter besides language. Regardless, do what you must to be safe.

Matt’s cane plowed through another pile of snowy sludge as he made his way down the street to the office. He cursed as his foot caught the tail end of yet another buildup of the stuff. Snow never failed to put him in a bad mood. It rounded the edges of his surroundings, made the ends of objects run into the beginnings of others. Navigating the inundated streets became infinitely less convenient when it was snowing.

He reached the door to Nelson’s Meats and pulled open the door, only to slam into a woman who was precariously balancing a large box of ham in her arms. The woman went down and Matt did too, unable to find traction on the slippery step. The woman landed in his lap, thank God, but the box crashed to the floor and spilled its contents all over the two of them. His briefcase and cane clattered onto the wet sidewalk from which he’d been trying to escape.

“What the hell! Why not watch where you’re going, asshole?” The woman cried as she scrambled out of his lap. Her attention was focused on her ruined blouse and the meat surrounding her on the floor. 

Matt was cursing himself for allowing his senses to get so lax. He put on a grimace as he regained his feet and offered the woman a hand up. She took it, grumbling under her breath. 

Matt stepped back into the biting cold. He knelt and began feeling for his scattered items. “I’m so sorry, I’m usually more careful than that. I can reimburse you for whatever I just ruined.”

The woman’s posture tensed, and she opened her mouth to retort before she noticed the cane on the ground and connected the dots. Her heart rate spiked and hot blood rushed to her cheeks. She sputtered out, “Oh, my God, I am so sorry, I didn’t realize you were blind.”

Matt found the edge of his suitcase and reached out for his cane. He smiled as he stood. “No worries, happens more than you’d think. Seriously, allow me to buy you a new one of whatever I spilled. It’s the least I can do.”

The woman rocked back on her heels, hovering on the fence of the decision. After a moment, she responded, “Okay, but only if you understand how mortified I am about what I just said.”

Matt shook off the snow and stepped into the threshold of the store. “I understand completely.”

By the time the woman was satisfied with her choice of meat and gone from the store, Matt had lost half an hour of time. He stormed up the stairs in a foul mood, wafting street filth and ham behind him. He shoved open the door, not bothering with the cane, and marched into his office to slam his briefcase down on the desk. Karen’s presence in the kitchenette became apparent from the stench of burned coffee. Foggy’s door opened in response to Matt’s arrival.

Matt popped open his briefcase and pulled the files he needed out, willing himself to calm down. He tore his soiled jacket off, chucked it into a corner of the room to fester and stink. Foggy slunk out of his office and took up residence in Matt’s doorway to watch the proceedings. Matt rifled through the files on his desk, realized that he’d missed one, and returned to the briefcase to search.

It wasn’t there. 

The last damn testimony for this case was sitting on his printer at home.

Matt slammed his fists down on the space surrounding the case. He closed his eyes in rage, for all the good it did him. Foggy stood in the doorway. Karen stopped moving in the other room.

The jacket in the corner taunted him. 

Matt took several deep breaths. He opened his eyes and removed his clenched fists from the table. Waited until the last of his fingers uncurled and his hands hung loosely at his sides. He ran a hand through his hair and sat down. 

Foggy took one of the seats opposite him and placed his elbow on the desk to rest his chin in his hand. He waited for Matt, who lowered his head.

“I fucking hate snow. Fell into a woman outside the shop and spilled ham everywhere. That shit--,” Matt pointed behind him to the stinking article of clothing, “--smells like fresh hell. To top it all off, I forgot one of the papers for the Snyder case at home.”

Foggy stared at him, breath annoyingly even. When he spoke, his voice was full of mirth. “Matty, I haven’t seen you this pissy since Stein canceled that torts lecture ten minutes before it was supposed to start.”

“Don’t call me pissy.”

“Okay, would you prefer bitchy or catty?”

Matt buried his head in his arms. Foggy reached across the desk to pat his head sarcastically. Karen knocked on the door, flighty and nervous. She asked, “Everything alright?”

Foggy grinned at her and replied, “Matthew Murdock upended a ham onto a poor, unsuspecting civilian. He is now going to hell for one thousand years.”

Matt reached out and smacked Foggy’s arm. He mumbled, “You and I both know that’s not why I’m going to Hell.”

Karen chuckled at that. Her hands were behind her back. She stepped into the room and said abruptly, “In more exciting news, I got you guys gifts!”

Matt sniffed from the side of his arm cocoon. The smell of office coffee was concentrated behind Karen’s back. It was underlaid with a familiar scent. Matt couldn’t place it, but he’d definitely encountered that smell before. 

Foggy slouched into his chair and bent backward to make upside-down contact with her. “Kare, Christmas is still a week and a half away. I thought we were reserving presents for then.”

Karen blushed, but she responded, “I know, just thought these might be useful to you two right now.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.”

Matt lifted his head from his arm prison to say, “If it’s anything related to pigs, I’m divorcing myself from this firm.”

Karen’s chest shook with laughter, and Foggy joined in after a moment. Matt allowed himself a smile. She revealed to the two of them her arms, to which were attached two mugs of coffee. 

The gift part was not the coffee. It was the mug; Matt identified the odd scent as the same one from Frank’s mug all those months ago. Karen passed one to Foggy and the other one to Matt, who immediately ran his fingers over the surface. 

The mug was chunky. It was octagonal in shape, smooth along the sides except for a large ‘M’ on one side. Opposite that was the braille form of the letter. The entire thing was covered in a glaze with irregular raised bumps. On the outside of the handle, Karen had engraved “For Matt XO - Karen”. 

Matt ran his hand over the thing while Foggy oohed and ahhed over his own. He turned to Matt and said, “Yours is black with red flecks, Matty. The ‘M’ on the side closest to me is dark red. I’ve got green and purple on mine.”

Karen sat next to Foggy, radiating warmth. Matt took a sip from his mug. The coffee was god-awful, but Matt couldn’t help but continue drinking. It was made better by the love Karen had obviously poured into the creation in his hands. He was drinking his coffee, made by his best friend, in his mug made specifically for him by the same friend. Karen’s gift was so heartfelt, so indicative of the love that she obviously felt for both of them, that Matt couldn’t help but tear up.

He wondered if this was how everyone else felt about their homemade pottery tokens. How Frank felt about his own mug, how Danny felt about his missing bowl, or Wade about his daughter’s figurine. Matt considered the object in his hands. Every inch of it was permeated with Karen. It exuded her kindness, her hard edges. The care with which she had crafted the braille and the engraving on the handle spoke of painstaking hours spent perfecting it.

The mug smelled like the richest earth and freshly blown glass. Above all, it smelled undeniably like the home they’d carved out of their little office: papers stacked too high and almost spoiled coffee and the buzz of ancient lamps late at night. 

Matt placed the mug softly on the desk. He stood and stepped around to hug Karen. He buried his face in her shoulder, inhaled there for a moment. She smelled like the mug as well, but there was something there that was distinctly unique to Karen. It wouldn’t transfer to anything she touched, but it hung onto her like a second shadow.

Foggy joined the hug, and soon the three of them were laughing in the center of Matt’s office, morning woes forgotten. In the back of Matt’s mind, he could hear the building storm and the yells of an arguing pair down the block. He ignored these in favor of being in the moment. He’d returned to his friends, and they’d accepted him with open arms. More importantly, they’d forgiven him. 

He was damn lucky.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter count is tentative, updates are tentative, everything is tentative, I'm drowning in IB, please comment your criticisms, the end, thank you.


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